Crew Parts Ways With Horton, Sanchez

The Crew has parted ways with its first homegrown player and one of its key offseason
signings.

Aaron Horton and Matias Sanchez will not return to the Crew, technical director and interim
coach Brian Bliss confirmed today.

“Those guys are done, and they have been notified,” Bliss said.

Neither player was active during today's practice session at the team's facility in Obetz. An
Olentangy Orange High School product, the 21-year-old Horton signed with the Crew after one season
with the University of Louisville. He made one appearance in three seasons with the Crew, coming on
as a substitute for the final minute in a June 28, 2011 home game against Real Salt Lake during his
rookie season. After coach Robert Warzycha criticized Horton’s professionalism following the 2012
season, the Crew explored several loan options for the forward.

Last year, he was loaned to the Dayton Dutch Lions of the USL Pro for a short time before being
recalled. The winter saw unsuccessful trials with FK Sarajevo in Bosnia and then Sweden’s Hammarby
before he was loaned to the L.A. Blues of the USL Pro where he made five appearances including
three starts.

Horton also suffered a torn left lateral meniscus in late March and missed time with the injury.
He scored in last year’s friendly against Stoke City and had one goal in four appearances with the
Crew’s reserve league this season.

“He came in as a 19-year-old with high expectations and probably never reached that lofty goal
that he had and we had as a homegrown,” Bliss said. “There’s another one that didn’t work out. You
can go club to club and find numerous guys it doesn’t work out for. We wish him the best and give
him a chance to go taste it somewhere else and hopefully he can find that because he’s got some
tools.”

Horton’s 2013 guaranteed compensation was listed at $80,500 according to figures provided by the
players’ union. It’s nearly a third of what Sanchez made in his lone season for the Crew after
signing with lofty expectations during the preseason. A member of Argentina’s 2007 FIFA U-20 World
Cup championship club, Sanchez played for Estudiantes from 2008-13 and appeared to be a player
poised to become a mainstay within Major League Soccer.

Instead, Sanchez made 14 appearances including 10 starts and scored one goal but did not play in
the final 12 games of the season after falling out of favor with first Warzycha and then Bliss. He
also missed five games during that stretch with a left calf contusion.

His salary of $230,000 was fourth-highest on the club. Bliss said he was not sure what didn’t
click for Sanchez with the Crew.

“There’s a number of things that can happen,” he said. “I don’t want to say it was a cultural
adjustment because his English is very good. I think he had the right mentality. I think he got off
to a slow start in preseason and never broke the lineup until game eight or nine. Then he played a
stretch of games and I would say there were some mixed results in terms of his performance, some
good ones and some poor ones. Then he got hurt and missed a decent amount of time. I came in and I
didn’t see the reason to get him in. it just didn’t work out.

“There’s a lot of guys it doesn’t work out for, but he came every day and played hard and I
respect that.”

Other roster decisions are not expected to be made for another week or two as the Crew's
coaching search continues.

Midfielders Justin Meram and Ethan Finlay were also absent from training, but Bliss said both
players had legitimate excuses to miss training and neither was injury related.

Also, forward Aaron Schoenfeld is recovering from a concussion suffered in Sunday’s 1-0 loss to
New England in the final game of the season.